Across industries I’m seeing a pattern:
AI isn’t replacing jobs yet, it’s replacing excuses.
Teams with the most manual work or legacy processes feel the pressure first.
What are you seeing?
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Which excuses are you referring to? I will see if they are in my repertoire
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- “We can’t automate this, it’s too complicated.”
2. “We need more staff to get through the backlog.”
3. “We can’t start this project without more headcount.”
4. “We can’t decide without more data.”
5. “This has to be manual for accuracy.”
6. “We’re too unique for automation.”
7. “Our tech stack can’t support that.”
8. “We need months of planning before we start.”
9. “This requires specialized human expertise.”
10. “We’re waiting for leadership alignment.”
11. “This role needs a human touch.”
12. “We’re too busy to automate right now.”
13. “We’ve always done it this way.” (My absolute favorite excuse)
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Everything you’ve posted in this thread, and the majority of what you’ve posted on this site @RaeMcO , has been AI-generated content.
Do you have any original thoughts at all?
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This feels glib and dismissive. If you look at recent unemployment figures (if you can find them…), it’s clear that AI is displacing actual human beings. Your observation is correct only to the extent that the disruption is just beginning; it’s going to get a lot worse. The efficiency of payroll savings or higher productivity will be more than offset by the plunge in consumer demand when tens of millions of unemployed workers can no longer afford the products and services they used to help provide.
Corporate eagerness to adopt AI is hurtling along much faster than understanding of how AI works, what the negative consequences may be, and how it might be used responsibly and sustainably. AI is a loaded revolver in the hands of a toddler.
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What an oddly Luddite view of things.
Even if your view of things is true - that tens of millions will be out of work - why do you imagine that they will henceforth be unemployable?
It doesn’t take awfully long to re-train someone into more practical work, such as construction, agriculture, or even elderly care.
The only real downside to this is that the wide swathes of downwardly-mobile pencil pushers will vote in actual, literal communists.
Maybe the CCP will inherit the world. Or maybe it’ll be the Napoleon of our time. Let’s see.
You are rude
Optimism is cowardice, BigFry
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I’m no Luddite – I use AI every day – but I recognize that, while AI comes with great potential, it also comes with great externalities – negative consequences most of us didn’t consent to because we were not parties to the transactions that are forcing this revolution upon us. We’re already at 1.1 million layoffs for the year, more than at any time since the onset of COVID.
At least you also acknowledge the externalities, but you seem to regard them as a feature, not a bug, which makes you a sociopath. Just wondering, though: how can you be so confident that you will not also be a casualty? AI has thrown into sharper relief the truism that, in a world where market values rule, no one is essential, and everyone is expendable. The face-eating leopards you would unleash on those you deem unworthy will eventually come after your face too.
By the way, if your fatuous suggestion that we implement Maoist re-education camps for information workers ever comes to fruition, electing actual CCP-style communists will be redundant. But it will be comforting to know that, when those inferiors whom you would task with housing you, feeding you, and caring for you in your enfeebled dotage discover that you have been among the most ardent advocates of the devastation that ruined their lives, they will treat you with all the deference and gratitude you deserve.
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Do you want to live in a world without “negative consequences”? If your answer is “yes”, then your opinion is irrelevant to any further discussion. Things hurt. Very few people consent to any “revolution upon them”. Is your life some Elysian paradise, a video game where you are the sole agent, the sole actor, the sole player? No, it’s not. Things are done to you, and you accept them, whether you like it or not.
I accept them, too. And I am expecting to be a casualty – in fact, I cannot wait to be. I relish the challenge. Unlike you, I will not just wither and die. Unlike you, I will not wait for someone else to save me. I will save myself, and I will glorify myself in the process. The destruction of ossified systems – like in France in the 1790s – leads to the emergence of hyper-capable and hyper-ambitious individuals who otherwise would have been stuck beneath incapable and ambitionless maintainers. People like you. The downwardly mobile due to incompetence.
As for your last point, I meant it as a joke. The CCP will outlive the Western democracies because it does not bow to the simple-minded, and it thinks in decades and centuries. It has no contingent of stakeholders begging for my handouts like you are. I have no love for the communists and never will – but at least they have the wisdom to understand who must be kept away from the levers of power.
And yes, you will treat me with the deference and gratitude I deserve, thank you very much. What will you do about it? Force a revolution upon me? Good luck.
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Bold words
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Well, I’m used to enduring negative consequences from decisions I wasn’t party to. I’m resilient and capable of self-reinvention, so I can survive those consequences, but I also have empathy for others and don’t want to see them suffer the consequences of bad decisions that were not their fault.
What I want is to live in a world with accountability, responsibility for one’s actions, and long-term strategizing with an eye toward mitigating needless and expensive human suffering. Right now, decisions about all our futures are being made by unaccountable, irresponsible, short-term-thinking elites who are unconcerned with the human or financial costs of the mass suffering they are inflicting. So we’re already living under the Western equivalent of the CCP.
Your bloodlust for the guillotine is duly noted. I notice, though, that every social Darwinist thinks of himself as belonging to the in-group that will be protected by privilege, as if you are the one who gets to design the hierarchy. But I wouldn’t count on being deemed “hyper-capable and hyper-ambitious” enough to have your own neck spared. The revolution always eats its own.
Wanting to not have the game rigged against you is not “begging for handouts.”
Best of luck with your self-glorification project. Indeed, why wait? Hand your job over to a bot now and get to work building something that will merit the high opinion you have of yourself. Should be easy, since you won’t be hindered by empathy, ethics, accountability, or concern over long-term consequences. Pro tip: it’s hard to glorify yourself when you’re hiding behind a pseudonym on a message board.
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I won’t mind AI doing the jobs that humans or workforce don’t want to do or are incapable of doing. With so much of cost to environment and human day to day impact ,having a prompter, document maker, code generators, analyser, video generator, image generator etc isn’t sufficient to make an positive impact on Human lives at a broader perspective .
With some reading one can see through it , what capabilities AI has with Billions invested in it till date?.And mind you the investors will want a return else pull out their money. No wonder AI corporates are pushing it so much even with no breakeven whilst promoting all ga-ga in the whole world. I Doubt if banks will take a risk of buying in AI any sooner or actually use the AI. Cost and resource intensive being few good reason. Apart from reliability Proof.
I will share example of automation that replaced around 50 employees of various geo location in my previous project. I really felt bad for them. I felt like axing my own feet by removing dependency on me and others. But that was my job to do automation and get compensated. At the ground level , it’s the human scientist and engineers who are being pushed to make AI work. Aka train it. The common workforce , ie almost everyone is working /learning it currently to be employable in future. If it works definitely many will be not needed even the Highly trained ones who built the very same AI . AI will correct itself and probably wont need maintenance like automation .
BTW The big shot of AI companies are all capitalist with no empathy. Who knows if they are puppets to the super wealthy, super elite of the world who control the world economics ? . You can see in their eyes in interviews. Personally I don’t trust any one who acts like a leader but no vision . Null trust .
Good that there are law suits already filed against them in US for copyright violations . AI is being trained with people data/content from your google account/FB/Instagram without consent and make money while you struggle even to find a monthly pay check. Hope more are filed before it’s too late. Especially on environment front. Again , Can’t wait for the AI bubble to burst because AI will add value to corporates by helping them not to pay salaries/wages to common people like you and me.
Thank you
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‘Axing own feet’. A fine turn of phrase
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Without using AI, these excuses remain the most common reasons for not taking action. If you truly know how to use AI well, it becomes more your friend than your greatest enemy. But in everything, AI is the key: make it work for you, not against you. And stay critical — because that’s what AI thrives on too.
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AI just add another liability to the tech ecosystem, new products and services can be developed based on AI. Financial industry should be serving along AI instead of replacing human with AI. The lack of foresight is why many opted to replace human interaction. When AI reached the peak they will be stagnant.
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Thank you for these insights
AI probably compresses generic analytical labor faster than it replaces finance itself.
A lot of white-collar work historically existed because processing information was expensive.
Now information is abundant. The bottleneck increasingly becomes interpretation, judgment and scenario framing under uncertainty.
That likely changes which personalities and skill sets remain valuable in finance over the next decade.
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I think important to note, that good instinct (like a censor’s) has become more important than ever, and the producer’s/author’s less than ever.
Which personalities do you think are most likely to thrive now - and which ones will be filtered out?